


Summer Children

by sunkelles



Series: Sansa/All the Ladies [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Femslash, Fluff and Angst, Set during agot, Sexy Times, Wishful Thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:16:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2307659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe she can have her gallant prince and keep her steward’s daughter as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Children

**Author's Note:**

> In which there are no happy endings. 
> 
> Or, Sansa and Jeyne are happy together but then the ending of agot happens and everything goes to shit.
> 
> Another note worth mentioning: I am currently half way through affc, so I don't actually know what happens after that. I dunno if that's relevant to this, but I thought that it was.

Southron ladies practice kissing by kissing each other, so Sansa supposes that there is no real harm when Jeyne suggests it. And it’s not as though Sansa can resist her best friend’s pleading brown eyes. So one night, when they are having a sleepover, they don’t go to sleep. When they feel secure, they sit up in bed and Jeyne looks to her.

“Do you want me to?” her friend asks tentatively, but Sansa doesn’t let her finish. She kisses her softly on the lips, and she finds that the sensation is even better than she had expected. She understands why people enjoy it. There’s something soft and intimate about the touching of lips, and Sansa finds that she doesn’t really want to stop. So she doesn’t, and Jeyne presses against her, harder, and Sansa digs her fingers into her friend’s hair and they start to get lost in the sensation. By the time they finish, they are both breathless as they lie back on the bed.

“Would you like to do that again?” Sansa asks softly. Jeyne’s breathless response of yes is all she needs, and she finds herself cuddled closer into her friend that night.

* * *

 

 

They do it again, and again, and _again,_ and soon it becomes much more than kissing. Some nights they rub off together like she has seen animals do in the yard, sometimes they use their fingers, and sometimes they use their _mouths._ Sansa remembers how delightfully scandalized Jeyne was when she had first suggested _that._ But the sex, and Sansa knows that is truly what the rest of it is, is fast and passionate and hot and Sansa can’t even bring herself to feel guilty about it.

* * *

 

 

Sansa remembers times when she wished Jeyne was her sister, but now she is glad she is not. She could not kiss her sister this way, could not make love to her at night.

After all, Starks are not Targaryens.

* * *

 

 

This thing that she has with Jeyne is more than just practicing, and it’s more than just kissing too, or even just the sex. Sansa doesn’t know what it is, when all she really wants is to curl into Jeyne’s embrace while she fiddles with her hair and kiss her silly and laugh with her and bed her and never let her go. Sansa supposes that what she feels, kissing Jeyne, touching her, is what she is meant to feel for her husband. Her high born lord or gallant prince will not know her secrets or laugh at all of their inside jokes, and Sansa sort of fears having that intimacy, or lack thereof, with anyone else. But she can have hope. Sansa hopes that it will be half as good with him as it is with Jeyne.

* * *

 

 

Soon Sansa learns that she will not be wedding a gallant knight or a highborn lord, but a _prince._ Sansa will be wedding the crown prince of the Seven Kingdoms. Someday, Sansa will be queen. She is not sure that she has ever been quite this happy. Though there is a small, scared voice in her head that remembers all the nights that she spent laughing and breathless in Jeyne’s embrace. She tries not think of what will become of their relationship after she becomes princess.

But at the feast, starring at her beautiful, golden prince, and exchanging small quips with Jeyne, Sansa comes to what should have been the easiest realization of her life. Jeyne can come to King’s Landing _with_ her, as her lady companion. They could remain together, just as they are now, and no one would suspect them. Ladies have a sort of intimacy among themselves that men do not understand. They would never suspect what goes on between the two between the sheets. Sansa smiles to herself.

* * *

 

 

“What happens when you wed the prince?” Jeyne asks her. It is not excited, the way that a little girl asks her best friend gossip, but then again, they are nearly women grown, and they haven’t been simply best friends for a long time. This affects Jeyne as well, and Sansa can hear the question that Jeyne dares not to ask: what happens to me?

“You can come with me,” Sansa says, and it holds the excitement of a small child sharing a secret, “I’ll convince father. I’ll need companions when I’m a princess. Who better than you?” Jeyne looks as though she’s going to melt at the remark, but another thought seems to cross her mind.

“Will we still be able to do this?” Jeyne asks, and Sansa does not need to ask what she means by _this._ She means the kissing, the sex, and everything that comes with it.

“I will make sure that we can,” Sansa says, and it sounds determined, like a royal decree. Which is alright, considering Sansa will soon be a princess. Jeyne smiles and her warm brown eyes glisten in the low lighting of the room as she curls up into Sansa’s embrace. Sansa will make sure that everything is alright. She will be the wife of a gallant prince, and Jeyne will be her fair maiden. The songs are sung for a reason, as they are the truth. And in the songs, true love conquers all. As long as Sansa has that on her side, no harm can befall them.

* * *

 

 

Bran’s fall _complicates_ things, but it does not stop them. Today is their last day in Winterfell. Their last day before Sansa starts her new life in King’s Landing, her new adventure. Arya is running about in the godswood, probably ruining one of her dresses, but Sansa just rolls her eyes. Not even Arya’s antics can ruin this day for her, as she is almost ready to leave Winterfell, with Jeyne in tow.

A bush of icy blue roses grows large and gorgeous beside her. Sansa plucks a rose from the bush and places it in Jeyne’s dark hair. The icy blue looks gorgeous against the dark brown. Sansa understands why her aunt had such a fondness for the flower.

“Winter roses,” Sansa says absently. Jeyne’s smile turns to a look of confusion.

“Winter Roses?” She asks, “but this is summer.” Sansa almost responds with her family words, but says something else instead.

“Summers in Winterfell are colder than Winters in Dorne,” Sansa says, “I guess it’s all in where you stand.”

“I’m glad we’re going to King’s Landing just so we won’t have to Winter here,” Jeyne admits. Sansa laughs.

This time she doesn’t stop herself.

“Winter is coming,” she says. Jeyne laughs too.

“But we’ll be in the South,” she says, “and it will still be warm. Maybe we can grow Winter Roses in the Kingswood.” And the suggestion is so absurd and wonderful that Sansa kisses Jeyne right there are then, the girl’s lips soft and pliant against hers. If she can have a little bit of home in the Red Keep, then yes, she can have her gallant prince and keep her steward’s daughter as well.

“You are brilliant,” Sansa says, and she means it. And the two gather a small sack of rose seeds and it feels like a promise.

* * *

 

 

Everything is wonder-filled visits with the prince and stolen laughter and kisses with Jeyne until Nymeria attacks Joffrey. Joffrey, who seems as though he might not be as golden and gallant as she first thought, but that is of no consequence, because Lady is dead. Lady is dead.

* * *

 

 

The night is warm after Lady dies (is killed) but the world feels so cold and desolate without her direwolf.

“I guess it’s just a sign,” Jeyne says that night, as Sansa weeps softly into her pillow “that you weren’t meant to be a lady. You’ll be a princess.” Sansa understands what Jeyne is trying to do, and Sansa appreciates that. But it is not making it better, only worse.

“I’m sorry,” Jeyne says softly, as much to the ceiling as to Sansa, “I’m making a mess of things, aren’t I?” Sansa laughs quietly around her tears.

“You’re not,” Sansa says, and the two lie silently side by side for a few minutes before Sansa speaks again.

“Just hold me,” she says, and her voice breaks slightly. Jeyne wraps her warm arms around her, and Sansa feels a bit safer. She is safe and warm in her lover’s arms. Lady is dead, and there is no way to being her back. But she can still be a princess, with Jeyne always by her side. Her dead direwolf is almost forgotten as she drifts off to sleep.

  
The night before they arrive in King’s Landing, “finally” Jeyne says in soft exasperation, they spend the night together for the last night of traveling. Jeyne’s eyes are a warm brown in the soft moonlight that Sansa feels as though she could melt into and her hair is a lovely, soft shade of brown. Her hair feels soft and right in Sansa’s fingers when she digs her hands into the other girl’s hair when they kiss. And her mouth feels as soft and warm and wonderful against hers as Sansa suspects that anyone’s can.

* * *

 

 

When her father tells her that Winter Roses won’t grow this far South, and that she wouldn’t be able to plant them anyway, Sansa feels the promise breaking. It reminds her of when Lady her father killed Lady, and she wonders how King’s Landing will possibly end up like a song.

* * *

 

  

But the Winter Roses are soon forgotten, the way that children’s overly grand plans often are. The capital is all wonderful knights and gorgeous ladies and nights spent curled into Jeyne’s embrace. It’s like a fairy tale. The queen is golden and kind and gorgeous and the prince is handsome and gallant and Jeyne is as wonderful as she has ever been. Sansa misses home, but she finds that the perks outweigh the small ache in her heart.

* * *

 

But then her father’s head falls to the ground and his blood splatters on the pristine, white steps of the sept. Sansa hears herself screaming before she even processes what has happened.

 _They were supposed to let him take the black_ , she thinks desperately. But her father is headless instead and her tears roll down her face as Joffrey Baratheon laughs and smiles as if it were all some hilarious joke.

* * *

 

 

As soon as Sansa can work up the courage, she asks where Jeyne is. She is met with silence, and Sansa does not ask again out of fear. She fears for Jeyne, and she misses her dearly. Jeyne’s eyes were warm like the largest hearth of Winterfell, warm like the furs that they shared together. They were warm the way that her Northern home was. Sansa finds herself praying for Jeyne the most, to both the old gods and the new.

* * *

 

 

She doesn’t know which emotion is strongest after her father’s death: her fear or her rage. But her rage is impotent, as impotent as her fear. Neither of them will fix her mistake. They will not give her father back his breath, and they will not send her back to Winterfell with her family and Jeyne. Sansa feels so helpless as the tears start to fall down her cheeks.

* * *

 

 

In the following weeks of her time in King’s Landing (captivity) she finds herself wishing that she had never left Winterfell. King’s Landing is hot and polluted and smells of too many sweaty people, rats, feces and filth. Sansa doesn’t know how she ever thought it beautiful. But Winterfell is wonderful. Winterfell is her family and soft summer snows and Jeyne’s laugh and Winter Roses. Winterfell is _home._

In Winterfell, Joffrey would not have been able to order the Kingsguard to beat her, the honorable, gallant, _just_ White Cloaks, sworn to protect women and children and serve the king. Sansa almost wants to laugh, though whether it’s at her own naivety or the soiled white cloaks of the Kingsguard, Sansa knows not.

She wishes her father had wed her to Theon Greyjoy or one of his banner men or no one at all. All she wants is to return home with her family and Jeyne, but there is no chance of that. Her mother, her father, Robb, Arya, Bran and Rickon, and even Jeyne are dead or gone. Theon’s a traitor and now _she’s_ the hostage. Her childhood died at Castle Darry with her direwolf. 

 _I was to be a princess_ , she thinks bitterly _, a **queen.** He was supposed to be gallant and good, and Jeyne was supposed to stay with me. _ But her dreams were only ever golden-plated, and now she sees the vileness under the surface.  
  
Sansa should have been more aware. She’s a Stark of Winterfell. Her naive dreams were dreams for halcyon days, summer days, and winter has come. Winter was always coming. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno how pleased I am with this one. I think that it's good enough for what I intended it to be, but I also feel that it could be better. 
> 
> Ah well, if I ever feel like it I might rewrite it.


End file.
